Teli Community Digest #2
New job board + fundraising tracker, some insights on interviewing for AE / sales / BDR roles, and the 5 Tweets of the week. Happy Sunday!
Hello Teli Labs community,
Welcome to the 2nd issue of the Teli Community Digest! This is where we highlight company updates, share insights, and keep you in the loop. Happy Sunday!
New Resources
Startup Job Board
In speaking with a number of community members and given our model where we only selectively reach out to members for very high-signal roles, we wanted to provide more helpful resources in the interim. Thus, we created a startup job board on our landing page:
This job board, updated daily, features curated early-stage startup opportunities across growth, ops, marketing, design, and content in NYC, SF, and remote (plan to expand to other geographies in the future!). Feel free to filter by function, level, location, etc. The job board highlights opportunities that have been posted very recently, in addition to hiring posts people make on LinkedIn. Keep up to date by checking it out on our landing page here!
I will note that you are wasting your time by blindly applying to these roles. If you just apply, you will not get the job, period. The current environment necessitates more creativity. Send over a Notion one-page with your recommendations for the business, a personalized email and why you’re 1 of n candidates, do a research project related to the domain of the company, vibe code a project that solves a pain point for the company, etc.
Startup Fundraising Tracker
In addition, we have added a Startup Fundraising Tracker to help keep tabs on top companies currently raising.
Hopefully, this can be a resource to find startups you are interested in, get to know them better, and potentially reach out to the founders or use for any other purpose you like! This tracker will be updated weekly and can also be found on our landing page!
If you have any requests or ideas for resources that would be helpful, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at adrian@telilabs.com.
Account Executive & Sales/BDR Roles
Over a year ago, I was early in my senior year of college and got through a few rounds of interviews for a Founding Account Executive position at a VC-backed seed stage startup. Then came the mock demo. The interviewing founders asked multiple questions I couldn’t possibly know the answers to about pricing and super specific feature details. My default response to all of them was that I wasn’t quite sure and would consult with the rest of the team and get back to them as soon as possible. I thought this was reasonable, but in hindsight, it was a HORRIBLE answer.
David Paffenholz, the founder of Juicebox, a company that recently raised $30M from Sequoia, has made a series of incredible posts about this very subject. In one post, he references a candidate who, when asked about pricing in a mock demo, pulled up a Google Sheet he had made ahead of time with every tier laid out, including a mini calculator for pricing depending on seat count.
For these types of interviews, it is a necessity to think outside the box in your prep and do things before they are even asked for. Make a mini sales asset (pricing calculator, short pitch deck), build a prospect list, record a short Loom comparing competitors, and similar things like this.
5 Tweets of the Week
Marc Andreessen (a16z), in a now-deleted post, appeared to mock Pope Leo XIV, who had described technological innovation as participation in the divine act of creation while urging AI builders to cultivate moral discernment as a core part of their work.
Bryan Johnson is taking 5 grams of mushrooms today to measure dozens of biomarkers as part of his mission to not die. He’s doing it on live stream, wow.
The Kalshi v. Polymarket feud intensified this week. In the past, the Kalshi CEO confirmed that employees asked social media influencers to promote memes about the FBI raid on the Polymarket CEO’s home (see TechCrunch article). Fair-play marketing? Customer-obsessed or competitor-obsessed?
Giga AI, fresh off a $61M raise this week, is facing criticism for its culture and accusations of inflating MRR by 6x, enforcing a 9-9-7 schedule, and more. Yikes.
Thank you for reading the second issue of the Teli Community Digest!!
If you have any feedback or recommendations, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at adrian@telilabs.com. Have a great week!